If You Like TV, You'll vote for Prop 14

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Northwest ISD's Academy of Media Arts and Technology has a state of the art media center where students produce newscasts just like in college.

As I sit here enjoying the wonderfully cinematic achievements where Meg Whitman says Steve Poizner is the reason we're all going to budget and economic hell, and Poizner fires back that Whitman is aligned with President Obama, who will certainly allow every illegal immigrant to stay in the U.S. and likely challenge even my job as an esteemed political blogger on a fledgling site, I can't help but think how Prop 14 may only enhance our viewing pleasure.

Passage will mean even more opportunities to see Whitman morph into Arnold Schwarzenegger on my insanely expensive HD set. Here's why. Right now the GOP candidates are slugging it out, slinging more mud than we thought would come down on La Canada during the winter rains. All the while Jerry Brown is sitting by, saving his money, perhaps even getting a few ideas of his own when he has to start airing his political spots.

Prop 14 would allow all voters, no matter their party, vote for whatever candidate they choose, no mater their party, and the two top vote getters, regardless of party, would face off in the General Election in November. This would force Jerry Brown to have started his media campaign earlier. He would have had to step into the fight or risk a third-place-and-you're-out-of-the-running finish.

This would make many campaigns even more expensive. And all that money would go to TV stations, radio stations, and other advertiser supported media (believe me, this blog would LOVE to be advertiser supported, but we're not there yet!)

There is real upside to the moderate Californian who is most likely to vote Democratic in one race and Republican in the next, depending on the candidates. The downside may be to the parities themselves, who are already watching their influence erode. So a vote for Prop 14 may indeed be a vote for more political ads. And more of those may mean that commercial I like with Betty White getting slammed into a muddy football field may be on a little less frequently., which I think is a shame.

So Californians, a vote for Prop 14 means more choice at the polls, more ads on your screen, and more chances for campaigns to find even more startling imagery to help them get their point across. If we spent the same amount of time actually researching the candidates' positions on issue as we do watching cars fly off cliffs in political ads, perhaps we could all make a more informed choice at the polls.